and solemn. It is plain that to organise our knowledge, even to
systematise our reading, to make a working selection of books for
general study, really implies a complete scheme of education. A scheme
of education ultimately implies a system of philosophy, a view of man's
duty and powers as a moral and social being--a religion. Before a
problem so great as this, on which readers have such different ideas and
wants, and differ so profoundly on the very premises from which we
start, before such a problem as a general theory of education, I prefer
to pause. I will keep silence even from good words. I have chosen my own
part, and adopted my own teacher. But to ask men to adopt the education
of Auguste Comte, is almost to ask them to adopt Positivism itself.

Nor will I enlarge on the matter for thought, for foreboding, almost for
despair, that is presented to us by the fact of our familiar literary
ways and our recognised literary profession. That things infinitely
trifling in themselves: men, events, societies, phenomena, in no way
otherwise more valuable than the myriad other things which flit around
us like the sparrows on the housetop, should be glorified, magnified,
and perpetuated, set under a literary microscope and focussed in the
blaze of a literary magic-lantern--not for what they are in themselves,
but solely to amuse and excite the world by showing how it can be
done--all this is to me so amazing, so heart-breaking, that I forbear
now to treat it, as I cannot say all that I would.

The Choice of Books is really the choice of our education, of a moral
and intellectual ideal, of the whole duty of man. But though I shrink
from any so high a theme, a few words are needed to indicate my general
point of view in the matter.

In the first place, when we speak about books, let us avoid the